Chapter 30: Umbridge Equals Frustration.
Thanks for the reviews.
I think I used the word frustrated, or a variation of it many times in this chapter. Hence the title. Everyone is just so frustrated. Lol.
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The welcoming feast went off without a hitch, except for the ministry worker, who was a woman dressed entirely in pink and looked like a toad. She was not a happy woman, or rather, she was an overly happy woman. She was so saccharinely sweet that she made Harry's teeth hurt just looking at her. She kept rambling on about things like not making progress for progress's sake and stuff like that, and it made no sense to Harry, but Hermione seemed to take offense to it.
After the feast, they went to the common room and discussed what the woman said.
"Don't you understand, she's going to be interfering with Hogwarts," said Hermione, pacing around the common room like a caged lion.
"How do you mean?" asked Dean, watching her with a wary eye. Whenever Hermione got like this, it was best to watch her. She could lash out like nothing else.
"She's going to try and halt progress," The bushy-haired which explained, turning on him and looking at him like he had lost his mind.
"I don't understand," said Harry, making Hermione turn her way to him.
"She said that she's going to nip everything in the bud and that things had to stay the same. To stop progress for progress's sake," explained Hermione. She was slapping one hand into the other hand, as if to emphasize each word.
"But that doesn't make any sense. She doesn't want us to evolve?" asked Lavender. She was very concerned about this.
"That's exactly what it means," said Hermione, looking at the other girl with surprise at her insight. Lavender usually wasn't the one who caught on to such things.
"Well, how are we going to learn? How are we going to grow?" asked Lavender, getting a slight bit hysterical. She came to school to learn. To grow. How is she going to do that if the teachers weren't going to show her?
"I don't think the Ministry wants us to. I don't know why, but that's exactly what I'm getting from her speech," said Hermione, though she could have been a bit more sympathetic towards the other girl's hysterics. She seemed to be rather agitated herself. Though in a much calmer fashion.
"Well, we're going to have to do something about that," said Harry, rubbing his temples. He wasn't sure what yet, but he was going to do something. Or rather, he was going to ask the adults to do something.
"Exactly what can we do?" asked Hermione, turning on him in a rather blunt fashion.
"I'm not sure yet, but we'll figure it out," said Harry. Not the least bit put out that she was in his face. "Until then, let's keep our heads down and just do what she says. I'll make sure to keep a record and unless she hurts us, just do what she says." He wouldn't put it past the woman to do something nefarious like caused them pain.
"Do you think she's going to hurt us?" asked Dean, there was doubt lacing his tone.
"She's from the ministry. I wouldn't put it past her," said Seamus, He had no doubt at all.
"You've got that right," said Harry, nodding in Seamus' direction.
"Well, we better keep our eyes and ears open then," said Neville. He was already composing the letter to his Gran. There were things he was going to tell her that he thought she should know about this Umbridge woman. He already knew his Gran didn't like her, and he figured she should know that she was there.
"Too right," said Harry.
With that, the group split up and got ready for bed. Everybody went to the dorms. And everyone noted that Ron was already in his bed with his curtains drawn.
"I wouldn't worry too much about him, Harry," said Neville, not the least bit worried whether Ron can hear him. "He'll either man up or it's just going to be the end of your friendship."
"I'm not overly worried about it," said Harry, He too was not worried whether the boy had put his silencing charm up. "I've seen it coming for quite a while. He's always been too caught up on the whole Boy Who Lived thing." That was the main problem with his and Ron's relationship.
"I guess you're right there," said Neville, nodding his agreement. "I've never really put much credence into the whole Boy Who Lived thing. I always figured it was something your mum did."
"I'm glad somebody else thinks that too," the other teen said, getting his pajamas on.
"Anyway, let's get to bed. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. We're going to be bombarded with homework," the shy boy stated, grimacing at the thought.
"Goodnight, Neville."
"Goodnight, Harry."
And with that, Neville went to bed and went to sleep, but Harry got on the mirror with Millie and told her about Umbridge. And then turned around and did the same thing with Sirius. Both adults were very concerned about that woman being in the castle and said they were going to keep their ears open in case she did something harmful to the children. Then they would be there lickety-split to do something about her.
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The next morning, the group got together and went down to breakfast. There was the basic full English breakfast. Ron made sure to sit away from them, and with his sister. She didn't seem to particularly like that, but she put up with him anyway. He was family after all.
The group spent their breakfast talking about nonconsequential things. They got their schedules and noted that DADA was their first class of the day. They talked about the teacher for a little bit and decided that they were going to follow Harry's advice and keep their heads down.
They all trooped off to the classroom. The teacher talked to them in a condescending manner, treating them as if they were first graders. Her class goals were laughable. She wasn't teaching them any magic whatsoever. It was completely theoretical.
Hermione kept trying to raise her hand, but Harry kept his hand on hers. She was getting mad at him and glared at him the whole time. But he kept his hand firmly on hers to keep her from raising it.
When they left the classroom, she rounded on him. "Why did you do that?" she demanded, hands on hips.
"To keep you from getting in trouble," he said, a glare on his face. He wasn't going to back down for doing the right thing.
"I wanted to point out that she wasn't going to teach us any magic," she said, pointing out the obvious and throwing her hands in the air in frustration.
"I think she already knew that," Harry said, also throwing his hands in the air in frustration.
"Yeah, Hermione. I'm pretty sure she already knew that she was going to be teaching us any magic. You pointing that out would have just caused her to look at you as if you were stupid or something," said Dean, chuckling at the thought of Hermione looking stupid.
"You don't understand," said Hermione, only to be cut off by Harry.
"No, Hermione, we do understand. She was just trying to goad you into doing something stupid," said Harry, practically growling out the words. For somebody so smart sometimes, Hermione was just so… clueless.
"She's a supremacist," said Neville, jumping with his two knuts worth.
"Oh, and how do you know that?" snapped Hermione, a bit harsher than she should have.
"Because she's the undersecretary of the minister. My gran knows her from the Wizengamot," the shy boy said, sticking his chin up in a defiant manner.
"That's right," said Harry, putting his hand on Neville's shoulder. "Sirius told me that she is very much a supremacist."
"And when did you talk to Sirius?" demanded Hermione, angry at him for not letting her put her hand up in class.
"Just last night. Why?" he said, miffed at her because she just didn't seem to get it through her head that he was trying to prevent her from looking like a fool.
"How did you talk to Sirius last night?" she asked, all but commanding him to tell her.
"That's my business," said Harry, pursing his lips at her tone. "All you need to know is what I found out about Umbridge and it's not good."
By this point in time, they were walking further and further away from that classroom. Which was a good thing because their voices were getting rather high.
"Keep your voices down," said Seamus in a harsh whisper. "You're going to get us all in trouble."
"I still don't understand why you kept my hand from going up. What trouble could I possibly have gotten in from asking a question?" Hermione asked, lowering her voice, and asking Harry one more time.
"I kept your hand from going up because you were going to ask her about magic. And why she wasn't teaching it to us. Right?" said Harry, sighing and rubbing his forehead.
"That's correct," she said.
"It was a trap," said Harry.
"What do you mean it was a trap?" she asked, confusion lacing her voice.
"I'm not completely sure. I just know it's a trap," Harry said, conviction in his tone.
"How can you be sure it's a trap?" she asked, sighing in frustration.
"Because it's the Ministry and they're trying to trap Dumbledore into getting people to say that Voldemort is back. The more people they can get saying that, the more trouble they can get Dumbledore in. I don't want anybody falling into that trap and give validity to either side," Harry explained, giving her a smile.
"I'll take your word for it this time, but please don't ever do that to me again," she said, sighing in resignation. Though she wasn't sure whether she wanted to take Dumbledore's side in this or not. She was sure that the Dark Lord was back just because Dumbledore said so, but Harry said he wasn't. Well, actually, Harry never said either way.
"I'll do what I think is best, but I'm sorry that I kept your hand down in class," he said, giving her a hug, causing all their friends to coo. Well, the girls, anyway.
"Apology accepted," she said, hugging him back.
And the two went about to their next class, which was potions. They handled it with this much aplomb as they normally did, which wasn't much because Snape still hated Harry with every fiber of his being. But since Sirius came into his life, he had toned that down somewhat.
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Time went on and everybody kept their head down around Umbridge, which frustrated the woman to a great degree. She did get some people in her detention, but it wasn't anybody that she wanted to. Those like Potter and Granger and Weasley seem to stay out of detention. And those are the ones she wanted to get into detention most of all. So far, she's only got a few little firsties. And they were too scared of her to complain.
The woman had been in the castle for two weeks now. And she hadn't taught anybody a damn thing. Hermione was beyond frustrated. This was her OWL year, and she was going to fail her tests and that was not acceptable. She was trying to cow Harry into teaching everybody DADA, but he was putting his foot down. He didn't want to teach everybody the class. It wasn't his job.
"Millie, I don't know what to do. Hermione is trying to get me to teach everybody DADA," he told her one night over the mirror.
"Why is she trying to get you to teach the class?" she asked as she settled down onto the couch with a cup of cocoa.
"Umbridge," was all he said.
"Oh, she's not teaching you anything, is she, yeah?" Millie asked, the light dawning in her brain.
"No, she's just teaching us theory and we're going to fail our OWLs," Harry said, though he was doing his very best to learn everything he could from the library.
"Well, there's nothing for it. Sirius is just going to have to come up there and do some serious talking with the headmaster. We can't have you failing your OWLs," Millie said. She sighed a huge sigh of frustration.
"Do you think Sirius will get through to the headmaster? I mean, it wasn't him that hired her," Harry said, having learned that tidbit of information from Neville.
"That's right. I had forgotten that. Sirius is going to have to go and talk to the Minister. I don't think he'll have much sway over him though. Perhaps if he gets enough purebloods together…" she trailed off. There were many thoughts going through her head about who they could get to go see the minister about getting Umbridge out of Hogwarts.
"I'll let you talk to him," Harry said, bringing her out of her thoughts.
"I'll do that. There are enough people that are getting frustrated with the teachings at Hogwarts. If there's one more year, they got failing OWL's then there's going to be a reckoning," his pseudo-sister said, grounding her teeth in frustration, remembering her own failing years of DADA. And the frustration she had in self-study. If it hadn't been for the study group, she would have failed.
"What are you talking about? Last year's teacher was actually pretty good," said Harry, remembering Mad-eye Moody. "And Remus was really good too. Sure, Lockhart was nothing to write home about. And Quirrell was pretty bad. But surely there had to have been better DADA teachers before that."
"Remember when we first met, we told you that there were a lot of DADA teachers before you came?" she asked, fondly remembering their first conversation.
"Yeah, I remember that conversation," he said with a crooked smile.
"They were all pretty bad."
"Oh."
"Well, that's not fair. They weren't all bad. There were some good ones mixed in with the bad ones, yeah, but there were still some bad ones in there. This position is cursed, yeah," Millie said, with a bit of an ominous tone.
"I think you said that once before," said Harry, trying hard to remember where he heard that from. "Do we know who cursed it?"
"Pretty sure it was Voldemort, yeah," she said with a bit of a laugh.
"Oh, why would he do that?"
"Because he wanted the position, but Dumbledore wouldn't give it to him. That's the rumor, anyway," she said thoughtfully, tapping her finger on her chin.
"Oh. I wonder why he wanted to teach," Harry said, getting a faraway look in his eye.
"Nobody really knows. Some say he wouldn't have turned into a Dark Lord if he had gotten the position of DADA professor," she said, shivering at that thought process.
"Blimey," he said, giving a full body shudder. The thought of the Dark Lord teaching Defense Against the Dark arts. Then again, he taught it all through his first year. Kind of.
"I know, that's really weird, isn't it?"
"Anyway, I better go to bed. I've got a ton of homework to do in the morning," Harry said, giving a jaw cracking yawn.
"It's Saturday and a Hogsmeade weekend, aren't you coming to see me?" she teased.
"Yeah, but not until the afternoon. Like I said, I've got a ton of homework to do. It is an OWL year, you know," he said with a wink.
"Alright, you do your homework. I'm proud of you for thinking of that," she said with a smile.
"Thanks, Millie. Goodnight."
"Goodnight to you, sweetheart."
And with that, the two of them signed off. Millie decided to call Sirius and let him know about Umbridge. They talked for a good twenty minutes, and Sirius decided that he was going to get the pureblood parents involved. They were going to confront Fudge and let him know that this was unacceptable. They were not going to have their children be defenseless because of this woman's pettiness.
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Another week went by, and Hermione still kept harassing Harry to teach everybody DADA, and he still refused her.
"Hermione, get a book," he said, a snap to his tone.
"Even I know you can't learn everything from a book, Harry," she said, causing everybody around them to go 'Ohhh'. Shocked that Hermione couldn't learn everything from a book.
"It is not my job to teach the school how to practice practical Defense. I don't know why you're harassing me like this," the dark-haired teen said. He was beyond frustrated at this point.
"You are the best in Defense Against the Dark Arts. You would be the best person to teach us," she said, trying to butter him up.
"I don't know what to tell you, Hermione. I have a lot to do right now. I don't have the time," he said, walking away from her. The rest of his friends were walking behind him.
"You have just as much as everybody else does. I'm sure you can find the time," she said, walking by his side.
"I've already said no, I'm not changing my mind. Quit harassing me," he said, making a slashing motion, indicating that he was done with the conversation.
She harrumphed and walked away. She would probably try again later. But for right now, she let it go. Harry just watched her walk away and then turned to his other friends and shook his head. He knew it wasn't over.
Luna put her hand on his arm. "She's just full of nargles," she said as she walked by his side.
"I really wish you would get rid of those. They are really clouding her judgment," Harry said, smiling down at her.
"Alas, she won't wear the necklace I made her," said Luna a frown on her brow.
"There's nothing for it," said Harry, sighing disappointedly.
"There are other things that are more important than what Hermione wants you to do anyway," said Luna in that airy tone of hers.
"Oh, and what would that be?" asked Harry, knowing that it was probably important.
"There's torture going on in this school," said Luna with great clarity. That caused everybody who was walking around to stop and stare at her.
"What kind of torture?" asked Harry, stopping dead in his tracks.
"Umbridge. She's torturing the firsties," Luna said, stopping along with him and looking up at his eyes.
"How is she torturing them?" demanded Harry, his voice angry. He was trying not to sound angry at Luna, but he was failing.
"She's using a Blood Quill," was the answer. She knew he wasn't angry at her. She didn't take offense to his tone.
"And what, pray tell, is a Blood Quill?" he asked, confusion in his voice.
"It's a quill that uses your blood to write. It carves into your hand. It's one of her own inventions. She invented it for the sole purpose of causing pain," the petite blonde explained.
Harry took a deep breath, counted to ten, closed his eyes and tried to calm down. "How do you know this, Luna?"
"One of the firstie Ravenclaws showed me their hand," she said a tremble in her voice. It had not been a pleasant experience for her.
"And did you take them to Flitwick?" was the first question asked.
"I did, and he was told to keep his head down," was the answer given.
"Oh, so the teachers are scared of Umbridge?" was the second question asked.
"Yes, they're very afraid of what the ministry is going to do to the school," Luna said in that dreamy voice of hers.
"Well, that's not right," said Dean, who finally spoke up from the sidelines.
"I'll see about this," said Harry. He wasn't sure what he was going to do yet, but he was going to do something.
And with that, the group took off and did other things while Harry contemplated what he was going to do about the torture that was going on in the school.
The first thing he did was contact Dumbledore. It was his job to stop this type of thing. No, the first thing he did was call Sirius and asked him to come with him to see the headmaster with him. He didn't tell him why, but he did ask him to accompany him. Sirius showed up ten minutes later and the two of them went up to the headmaster's office.
They were bid to enter. So, they did, and then sat down in the chairs in front of the gaudy desk.
"What can I do for you gentlemen today?" The headmaster asked, his ever-present twinkle in his eyes.
"I don't know. Harry just asked me to be here today. Harry, what's going on?" Sirius asked, turning to his godson.
"It came to my attention that Umbridge is torturing the first years," Harry said, anger showing in his voice.
"How do you know this?" asked Dumbledore, all signs of humor gone from his voice and face.
"Luna told me. She said she saw words carved in the hands of one of the first years in Ravenclaw. She said it's a quill that was designed by Umbridge herself, that uses the blood of the user," Harry explained while his fists were clenched on his thighs.
"Did she see Professor Umbridge use it herself, or is she just guessing?" asked Dumbledore, as he rubbed his temples trying to see what he could do about this situation from all points of view.
"You know that Luna is a seer, sir," Harry said derisively.
"No, I did not know that, young man," Dumbledore said firmly.
"I thought everybody knew that, sir. That explains why everybody teases her, and puts her down," Harry said again, anger in his voice. It always bugged him that everybody bullied Luna so, and nobody stopped it.
"Harry, even I didn't know that. And I've hung around Miss Lovegood longer than Dumbledore has," Sirius said, looking at Harry with a queer look.
"It's completely obvious, Sirius," Harry said, tilting his head to the side.
"I think she hides it well, Harry," his godfather told him.
"Either way, Umbridge is torturing the first years and she's going to torture anybody who gets in detention. She's been trying to get me into detention since I first stepped foot in her class. We need to do something about this," Harry said, dropping the subject of Luna for now.
"Let us go to her classroom and see if we can find these…quills," Dumbledore said. There were many things he was, but a torturer of children was not one of them, and he would not abide by it being done in his castle.
"Not you, Harry. You can't be involved in this. I want you to go back to your common room," said Sirius, grabbing Harry by the shoulder and holding him back from following Dumbledore.
"But… uh, but," said Harry, wanting to follow along and be there when they nabbed the vile woman.
"No, no buts about it. You can't be involved," said Sirius. There was no way he was involving the Boy Who Lived with any of this.
"Don't you think she's going to figure it out if you turn up?" Harry said, looking at his godfather with a 'You've got to be kidding' look.
"No, I don't think she will," said Sirius, giving a dismissive wave. "I plan on staying in the background anyway and letting Dumbledore take care of this."
"Which would probably be for the best. This is a Hogwarts matter at any rate," said Dumbledore. He was never one to share the limelight anyway.
"Fine," said Harry, and he stomped off. He went back to his common room and sulked, not letting the rest know what was going on, but did let them know that the headmaster was involved now.
The rest of the student body got to see the Aurors show up and drag Umbridge away. They didn't know what happened, but they did know that she was gone, and they were very happy to see it. Some of the firsties cried, they were so happy.
There was an article in the newspaper the next day that stated that Umbridge was torturing the children and that she would be seeing time in Azkaban for her crime. That she had invented a torture device just for children. And had used it on the students of Hogwarts. Sure, they might have hammed it up some, but it sold papers.
Minister Fudge decried all knowledge of this torture. He was quoted as saying that he had nothing to do with Umbridge's reign of terror. Small though it was. They asked if he had anything to do with her curriculum, and he stated that it was ministry approved and then was criticized for the lack of teaching of magic.
Sirius and many of the other parents were up in arms about that. They stated that their children were not given the proper education and that the ministry was trying to keep them uneducated. That their children wouldn't even be able to pass their OWLs with what that woman was trying to teach them. And the minister said that he approved of that. That their children would not be able to protect themselves from a Niffler, let alone a Death Eater.
Minister Fudge stated back, 'Why would they need to protect themselves from a Death Eater?' And Sirius pointed out that that was not the point. The point was they wouldn't be able to protect themselves from a Niffler. Fudge tried to accuse them of stating that the Dark Lord was back, and Sirius told him he was a moron. He stated that he said no such thing. However, he was stating that Fudge was trying to kill the public by under-educating them.
The public was up in arms about that. It was not a pretty sight in the ministry nowadays. There were protests every day. The minister was not a popular person.
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Meanwhile, the Order of the Phoenix was still trying to protect whatever the Dark Lord was after in the Department of Mysteries. Madam Bones kept arresting them for loitering. And they would have to spend the night in jail. But Dumbledore kept sending them back.
Arthur refused to go. He could not lose his job over something like this. Many of the Ministry employees kept telling Dumbledore that they could not go. So, Dumbledore resorted to using those that didn't work or were retired.
Sirius flat out refused, using his ex-con status as an excuse. He did finally learn that it was a prophecy that Voldemort was after and laughed at the thought that the two old men were putting so much value into it. He wondered if he should tell Harry.
